Acknowledgements
The authors woud like to thank all the children and people of Nord Pas-de-Calais who took part in the films:
In particular:
École Jacques Prévert in Ruitz, near Béthune
École élementaire Léon Jouhaux in Roubaix
École René Clair in Villeneuve d'Ascq
École primaire niveau 2 in Sars Poteries
Lycée Charles de Gaulle, London
This new edition of Early Start French 1, "Salut! Ça va?" has been made possible with the help of:
The Cordonnier family
Karine and Phillipe Cordonnier and their children, Lili and Loïc.
M et Mme Deleglise
Françoise Antit
Published by Early Start Languages
11 Western Road, Deal, Kent CT14 6RX
United Kingdom
Tel: 01304-362569
Fax: 01304-600123
www.earlystartonline.com
ISBN 978-1-905842-85-8
The Activity Sheets in the Teacher’s Manual may be photocopied for educational use by pupils. These pages are clearly marked and photocopies may be made only for internal use in the purchasing institution.
MULTIMEDIA and FILMING
Producers: Ian Killbery and Ilsa Rowe
Camera: Philip Tuppin, Dudley Darby,
Sound: Geoff Neate, Michael Jenkinson, Lynn Tuppin
Video editing: Ilsa Rowe
Graphics: Emily Skinner
Voice-over: Caroline Crier
Multimedia: Ian Killbery
TEACHER’S MANUAL
Course book: Ilsa Rowe and Ian Killbery
Illustrations: Emily Skinner
Teacher’s Manual v.5 © 2018 Early Start Languages Ltd.
Early Start Languages reinvests its income in projects to help young people learn languages and study other cultures, and to promote European understanding.
The rights of Ilsa Rowe and Ian Killbery to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for the permission granted above, no parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any form by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the copyright holders.
“Salut! Ça va?”
Optional section: L'alphabet
14. As-tu des frères et des soeurs?
Optional 14. As-tu et des Introduction
“Salut! Ça va?” is the “starter”stage of the complete “Early Start French” online course designed to help the primary classroom teacher introduce young learners to the language and everyday life of France. The emphasis is on laying a solid foundation for further language learning, so that children can start to understand when listening and reading simple language, and work from the outset to be able to speak and write too when the context is familiar. We start with the theme of “You and me”, enabling pupils to use the foreign language to exchange personal information; to talk about themselves and find out about other people.
The course introduces new vocabulary and structures at a deliberately slow, steady pace. It offers plenty of lively and interesting practice through varied activities before progressing to the next step. This way children gain confidence through success at each stage.
“Early Start French” works in a spiral fashion, often revisiting previously learnt language, and reusing it in another context.
Who can teach this course?
“Early Start French” is particularly designed for a mixed-ability primary school or special needs environment, where the class teacher is responsible for delivering the whole curriculum to a group of children who learn together. You already apply your teaching-skills and knowledge of your pupils on a day to day basis as you manage your pupils' learning in a wide range of other subject areas; we offer strategies to adapt those strengths to teaching French. All teachers of young beginners will find these materials useful. Those with specific training in the teaching of foreign languages and who are fluent French speakers will be able to develop their own activities using the films and the teaching ideas as a starting point.
“Early Start French” makes it possible for non-specialist teachers of French to develop successful language learning activities with their pupils and to stimulate children's curiosity about another culture.
Unique advantages
Early Start’s films become the first point of reference in your classroom for language, pronunciation and usage. They do not rely on the teacher being a fluent performer herself; everyone in the classroom can benefit from using the native-speaker recordings as a model.
From Chapter 1: “Salut!” - arriving at school
The bonus is that there’s so much more to see in the films: children are fascinated by the everyday details of French children’s lives as captured on screen
If you are a secondary school language specialist working with feeder primary schools, this course will help you work with appropriate primary methodology. In partnership with the class teacher you can realise some of the interesting cross-curricular possibilities opened up when children start learning a foreign language.
The TEACHER’S MANUAL: Planning your course
Within each chapter of the Teacher’s Manual, we describe the language and cultural content, and explain the design of the course. Each chapter suggests activities which centre around the films and e-flashcards. You can select from the activities, and pace what you do to suit your aims, your pupils and time available.
You may have one weekly 30-40 minute session, but if you can choose, many teachers find short daily sessions benefit pupils more. These might last no more than 5-10 minutes.
1. “Core” vocabulary
Each section of the films introduces some new words and phrases; together with the e-flashcards these slowly build up pupils’
Optional section: L'alphabet
Optional 14. As-tu et des Introduction
14. As-tu des frères et des soeurs?
vocabulary and the range of topics about which they can exchange information. New words for each chapter are highlighted in a box.
Extra words and phrases
Some chapters include suggestions for “extra words and phrases” which teachers with more experience of French may like to introduce. These are optional - most activities will work just as well if you choose not to use them
Building confidence Games & activities
You can use the ”Talking Dictionary” for helpful reminders of pronunciation that you can have a quick look at before lessons.
Click to hear the French word(s)
Click for other examples of this phoneme
You can find a summary table of this “core” vocabulary at the end of this introduction.
2.
To help teachers who are refreshing their own French and those who are beginners, we offer simple explanations of “how French works”. These will give you an idea of how and when a particular phrase might be used by native speakers in their own country.
HOW FRENCH WORKS 1: 1
When you listen to film 5 and the talking dictionary, you will hear that there are two different French words for 'my':
“
ma soeur” (my sister)
“
mon frère” (my brother).
Children can see that “ma” is used with feminine nouns (mother, sister, etc),
These sections also offer clear explanations of any grammar points which you will need to understand. These are never very complicated: the “core” vocabulary has been carefully chosen to make learning French as straightforward as possible for both pupils and teachers.
Each chapter outlines a variety of activities that you can use to give pupils practice in using new vocabulary in a lively and enjoyable way. Diagram 1 summarises the stages through which pupils move as they master new language. They need time and practice, so start by letting them hear the new words as they are pronounced in the films, with text on the eflashcards and spoken by you in the classroom. The images in the films help pupils understand the meaning without ever translating - part of the important skill they will gradually develop of following the “gist” of what is being said.
Diagram
Optional section: L'alphabet 14. As-tu des frères et des soeurs?
Songs
”Salut! Ça va?” includes some simple songs where the new words are set to catchy, singalong music. The films show French children singing; your class can join in with a karaoke version with music and optional words. The songs help children enjoy and remember the new words.
The four skills:
(1) listening and speaking
The first activity is echoing as a group. This gives pupils practice in making the sounds of the language as they hear them, imitating you and the native speakers in the films and e-flashcards. We have picked out a range of “key sounds” that children can look out for as their vocabulary grows - sounds that are common in French but not in English. Other activities help them listen and respond physically to the new words and phrases; for example, by pointing, choosing or finding; and through games like “jump to the number”. We suggest ways of helping children to remember new vocabulary, whilst avoiding boring repetition. Starting with teacher-led activities, you can introduce pair and group work as pupils become familiar with the new language, and are ready to make more independent use of it.
The four skills:
(2) reading and writing
The e-flashcards a great tool to hear new French words and phrases whilst seeing the corresponding text at the same time. This addresses the danger that pupils might otherwise follow English sound-spelling relationships when working out how to pronounce a French word they see in writing.
Encourage pupils to learn the spelling of each word at the same time as they learn its sound.
”Listen to the sounds” is one of the activities offered which you can use to gently familiarise pupils with reading French, especially reading aloud. They can play word recognition games, matching words and pictures; as their vocabulary grows, they can look for patterns in how words are pronounced, whilst being alert to exceptions and irregularities.
Reading is also a language-acquisition skill: children can read a bilingual dictionary to find appropriate equivalents. When they find a new French word in a dictionary, they can work out how to pronounce it from other French words they know already, and how their sounds are recorded in spelling.
In Early Start French 2 and 3 there are more specific writing activities. In French 1 we do highlight opportunities for simple writing tasks to reinforce pupils' learning. At this early stage these mostly involve labelling pictures and objects with individual words - making sure that children remember the sounds that go with what they are writing.
Key sounds
Each chapter of the Manual identifies new words where distinctive French “key sounds” occur.
These are sounds unfamiliar to English ears: we suggest, for example, that you listen for the soft “j” in “bonjour” - and perhaps compare it with the English sound in words like “banjo”. This sound has its own symbol, “ ”, in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a standard notation for phonemes (sounds) in any language, so you can read in this Manual, e.g. that the “j” in “bonjour” is the same sound as the “ g ” in “rouge”. You can check it in a dictionary that uses IPA; and with what you hear in the films and e-flashcards.
KEY SOUNDS
Phonetic symbol
Examples in French
c in q, à dem ain , lap in mam an , tr en te, bl an c bon j our, j ’ai, â g e, rou g e
merc i , d i x, i l, an i mal
ch at, ch aud, diman ch e
au r evoi r , r ouge, f r è r e
b on jour, on ze, n on
d eu x, n eu f, bl eu , j eu di
fami ll e, mons i eur, sole il
The focus on sounds has distinct advantages in improving pronunciation. You and the children can have fun by practising the words, relishing the “French” sounds and trying to make your pronunciation of French words like “orange” sound really authentic. Young children are natural imitators and will be very receptive to the sounds of French when they hear them spoken by the native speakers on the films. Soon they will be able to spot other instances of the “key sounds” - the recurring activity “Listen to the sounds” will help.
bons oi r, t oi , oi seau
oui , bonne n ui t, h ui t
all ô , au revoir, ois eau
d ou ze, aoû t, s ou ris
salu t , blan c , gri s
e t, z é ro, janvi er , sal u t, t u , tort ue
tr è s bien, e lle, p è re, m ai
l e , d e , au r e voir, vendr e di
cin q , qu el(le), c ouleur
un , l un di
Ar th ur, Th omas
